‘Quiet Quitting’ of office workers threatens long-term effect on downtown retail traffic

“Quiet Quitting’ -- workers’ lingering retreat from their office spaces and obligations -- appears here to stay. And employers are having a hard time fighting it.

According to a survey conducted by Gartner, corporate human resources leaders estimate that an average of 23% of their employees practice Quiet Quitting, which also involves workers isolating themselves from other team members.

Fifteen percent of those surveyed reported that 40% or more of their employees were engaging in the use of the behavior that gained its alliterative name on TikTok.

This could be bad news for retailers with locations in downtowns that don’t draw many tourists and depend on office workers for daytime business. According to the Gartner study, 58% of employers are attempting to increase the productivity of their workforces by removing location requirements for their jobs.

Companies are also drastically decreasing on-site requirements for workers. One-quarter of those surveyed said they’d reduced their weekly in-office mandates to just three days. Another 20% revised their requirement to one or two days.

Neither are employers being very aggressive about headcounts. Forty-three percent said they do not track attendance at all.